I think the best piece of advice for ecommerce entrepreneurs is: "My apartment doubles as our office. Keep your costs as low as possible." I've seen a lot of new online store owners see a big jump in success early on due to the excitement of a new product launch or kickstarter campaign (or PR, viral on Reddit, HN..etc...) and they assume that success will continue so they double down on infrastructure. 2 weeks later, or a few months later things die down and they're locked into an office lease of 3 years.
"even successful companies don't know the secret to their success" - so true. I speak to successful online entrepreneurs almost every day and am constantly surprised by the lack of strategy used and the lack of awareness of what actuallY moved the needle for them. Sometimes the cherry picked 'best practical advice' is just a shot in the dark (though still very helpful).
Shopify HQ is in Ottawa w/ about 240 people. Shopify's Toronto team (about 15 people) will be moving into Jet Cooper's office. This will grow Shopify Toronto to ~40 people.
They're always looking for skilled developers and aren't too picky about age as long as you've got chops. They tend to be receptive to unconventional job applications.
Not at all. Jet Cooper is ~30 (incredibly talented) people. It's a talent acquisition. They're basically buying a larger Toronto presence via acquisition. Smart move, especially going for JC.
Looks great. Not sure how they 'guarantee a $60k job offer or we'll refund your tuition' but either way, it's nice to see an iOS bootcamp in Seattle like this.
Code Fellows works with each student to get their skills to the level of being hire-able, and then works with partner companies to place them. If for some reason a student tries and can't get a job their tuition gets refunded. Does that answer your question?
I'll have to let Andrew, my co-author, speak on why he left the corporate world to start his ecommerce blog.
But I can share why I decided to write this. I noticed that most, if not all of the information on drop shipping is bullshit. The topic is riddled with scammers looking to rip you off.
A few months ago I published a guest post about drop shipping on my company blog. It was written by my co-author. It was very well received... seemed there were people out there starving for good information on getting a drop shipping business up and running.
I bought every print and ebook on the subject, read most articles I found online on the topic, and quickly realized that we could probably write something way better. So we did. I hope! :P Anwyays, that's it... just published it today and can't wait to get feedback on how to improve it. Once we polish it up a bit, I plan on releasing an eBook so people can read it on their Kindles and what not. If you read it Kitcar, I hope you enjoy!
That's admirable, but what about the answer to his question? You're giving away your secret sauce and introducing more competition into the market and lowering the barrier to entry.
Mark's co-author, Andrew, here. I just published a really length reply above, so hopefully that answers your question. In a nutshell, just like in business the biggest secret sauce is hard work and consistency - it's not like we're giving away the keys to the treasury where they print money!
With that being said, there are a lot of nuances to picking a good niche (especially in drop shipping where the competition can be fierce and margins low) and to operating a drop shipping business (as it can get logistically complex). Those are some of the things we're trying to shed more light on in the guide.
I just launched the online version today so I haven't had time to make a PDF yet. But yes, I'll definitely get on that ASAP. Glad to hear you think that would be useful mrchess.
Thanks so much. Part of the reason I decided to write this guide with my co-author Andrew is there's so much bullshit out there regarding drop shipping. It's really bad.... and if you go to Google to learn more about the topic I'm afraid most results are scams. I wanted to change that. Shopify was gracious enough to give me the time out of my regular duties to pursue this project and I'm really happy with how it turned out. Tell your wife Cheergram is awesome, and a huge congratulations for getting her drop shipping business up and running! Happy reading callmeed - I really hope you enjoy the rest of my guide! :)
That's great ... it's probably a good time to tackle this since people seem to be gravitating away from Ebay and toward more direct selling through social media, shopify, and all the recent "SELL ANYTHING WITH STRIPE" services we see here on HN.
If you have any specific questions or need quotes related to print/photo drop-shipping, let me know. I actually just got back from a big photo industry trade-show. Lots of interesting things going on.
